


this storm too shall pass

by remux



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Past Abuse, nothing graphic but its about andrew so, recovery is not linear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-13
Updated: 2017-07-13
Packaged: 2018-12-01 18:49:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11492499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/remux/pseuds/remux
Summary: "I’m trying," he wanted to say; wanted to take a deep breath and return to where he’d been five minutes ago, wanted to have a simple Sunday, wanted to tell Neil to keep going and get lost in his hands.What came out of his mouth instead was a sudden, angry, unbidden, “Can’t I catch a fucking break?”





	this storm too shall pass

**Author's Note:**

> hi! this is very short im sorry! but i've been gnawing on this idea for months and i really needed to get it out! i hope u like it! thank u!

The most startling thing, perhaps, was how it caught him so off-guard.

They’d been having a quiet, blissfully uneventful Sunday, the air in their apartment light with domesticity and their sleeping shirts heavy with cat fur. Neil had gone for a run early in the morning and returned to Andrew cooking breakfast with the windows thrown wide open and the radio humming softly in the background. They’d eaten on the couch while watching the news, and then Andrew had lowered himself on the carpet with his back resting against the couch to work on his psychology homework. Meanwhile, Neil had sprawled across the whole couch and dug his phone out of a pocket, pulling up videos of Tuesday’s opposing team to study their strengths and weaknesses with one calf pressed firmly alongside Andrew’s arm.

Andrew had for once been feeling quiet in the way that didn’t threaten to choke him from the inside out, quiet in the way that settled his bones like a blanket, quiet like softness instead of blank darkness, and Neil had had that focused look on his face that never failed to Andrew’s hands itch and his skin tingle. His homework had been mostly done anyway, so he’d tilted his head back against the cushion Neil was lying on and raised a hand to the other man’s mouth, poking at the soft arc of his lips. Neil’s attention had immediately shifted away from his screen to focus on Andrew, and it’d felt gratifying in a way it shouldn’t have been to know where Neil’s priorities lied first and foremost. Andrew’s mouth had quickly followed his fingers, and in one less-than-smooth maneuver he’d been straddling Neil and lazily kissing a path up his neck, phone and homework forgotten.

It had been grounding and comfortable and familiar in a way he’d never have thought possible for himself years ago, his limbs relaxed and his body receptive as they made out for what could’ve been minutes, or hours, or days.

Until it wasn’t.

He’d told Neil anywhere above the hips was fine, but suddenly it wasn’t, suddenly Neil’s fingers splaying across his belly weren’t Neil’s, and suddenly he wasn’t in his flat, on his couch, in the future; suddenly his brain was screaming _threat, threat, threat;_ suddenly he was shoving away from trespassing hands and stumbling to the other side of the room, gasping like a drowned man with shaking limbs and a racing heart.

“Andrew,” he heard Neil say from a decade away.

Andrew blinked a few times but his vision was betraying him, his brain flashing memories behind his eyelids like a stereoscope he wasn’t in control of.

“Andrew,” Neil repeated, closer now despite not having moved an inch from the couch. “You’re in our flat. It’s August fifth, the cats are asleep on our bed and we’re the only people in the room. You have an exam on cognitive psychology next week, and Nicky is flying down from Germany the day after. Come back.”

 _I’m trying,_ he wanted to say; wanted to take a deep breath and return to where he’d been five minutes ago, wanted to have a simple Sunday, wanted to tell Neil to keep going and get lost in his hands.

What came out of his mouth instead was a sudden, angry, unbidden, “Can’t I catch a _fucking_ break?”

If Neil had been moving, he’d have stilled in surprise. “Andrew?”

Andrew raised his hands to his face and dug the heels of his palms into his eyes until stars burst behind them and pulsated the memories away. The anger was new yet familiar in the way lurking creatures tended to be until they were brought to light. In that moment it was preferable to the panic and fear. Anger was dangerous and unpredictable, and perhaps years ago he’d have buried it under layers and layers of apathy and turned away from it, but Andrew was not who he was years ago. The Andrew of today had a lowered guard and countless therapy sessions under his belt; had years of unlearning unhealthy coping mechanisms and was more in touch with his feelings than he remembered being since childhood.

The Andrew of today could still repress the anger if he tried, but knew better than to attempt it.

“Fuck,” he hissed as the wildfire spread in his chest. “ _Fuck_.”

“Outward,” Neil reminded him. It was a code, a suggestion they’d built between the two of them. _Putting emotions into words allows a deeper understanding of the meaning behind the emotional states. The capacity to recognize what one is feeling provides the ability to choose a suitable behaviour. Experience of emotion motivates the individual to act in a certain way that will maintain the presence of the affect or will change it._

“Outward,” Neil repeated, his voice tentatively hooking Andrew’s attention back to the present.

“It’s unf-” Andrew tried, but choked on whatever was trying to crawl up his throat. He paused to take a deep breath, counted backwards from ten, and tried again. “I’m really fucking tired of this.”

“Of what?”

“What the fuck do you think, Neil?” Andrew asked without any real heat. He pulled his hands away from his face and slowly let them fall back down his sides. His skin was crawling with the need to put his armbands on.

Neil was looking at him steadily from his place on the couch, waiting for an answer.

 _Outward_ , Andrew thought.

“I’m tired of feeling like prey in my own head,” he said tonelessly. “I’m tired of always looking out for triggers and being hyper-aware of every single fucking thing in the room. I’m tired of seeing danger everywhere, of analyzing every movement and twitch and word in everyone I meet.” An inhale, then an exhale. “But most of all I’m tired of shit like this catching up with me when I think I’m safe to remind me that there’s nowhere I can go where their hands won’t fucking follow.”

He met Neil’s eyes and saw quiet understanding as well as that familiar coals-hot rage that lurked in the tension of his jaw whenever Andrew’s past was brought up. Andrew often wondered if the knowledge that the other man would hunt down and burn every single one of Andrew’s demons if he was asked came from Nathaniel of if it was still just another part of Neil.

Andrew thought, _Abram_.

“Can I get close to you?”

He didn’t move an inch from the couch for the whole minute it took Andrew to answer. It wasn’t exactly a test because doing something like that would feel too close to a betrayal of trust for them, but it always settled something in Andrew to have physical proof of Neil’s self-control. To have physical proof that Andrew’s consent did mean something, now.

“Yes,” he said.

Neil didn’t hurry, but took measured steps. Not careful like he was approaching a cornered animal, but slow and deliberate enough that Andrew could see where his hands were at all times. When he finally stood in front of him, Neil searched Andrew’s face for any lingering traces of apathy or disconnection, but found only a bone-deep weariness.

“Above the shoulders,” Andrew quietly answered the question in Neil’s eyes.

Neil wasted no time in leaning down. Andrew closed his eyes, fully prepared to receive a kiss, but instead felt Neil brush his nose against Andrew’s in a feather-soft brush of skin, light as nothing. Andrew opened his eyes again to look at him, but Neil’s were closed now, and then his lips were brushing Andrew’s cheekbone as he would have with his fingertips. He heard the soft sound of moving fabric as Neil raised a hand to his jaw, thumb stroking gentle but firm shapes into his cheek.

“What are you doing?” Andrew asked, voice raspier than he’d intended.

Neil answered by redirecting his mouth along the strong line of Andrew’s jaw until it reached that sensitive spot at the base of his ear. Andrew failed to hold back a shiver as Neil’s warm breath ghosted over the fine hairs there.

“Asshole,” he murmured when he felt Neil press a smile into his skin. He grabbed the back of Neil’s neck and pulled him away far enough to crush their lips together in a searing kiss, feeling something in his chest re-center itself with every one of Neil’s soft exhales. He rooted himself in the moment and let himself be pulled back into the safety of this home he’d built from scratch, let Neil weave the tension out of his shoulders with clever fingers and molten eyes.

That was, after all, what storms did. They passed.

**Author's Note:**

> idk if i'll turn this into a series or just like... create a new one, but i definitely intend to write more aftg stuff in the future! i love my kids!


End file.
